@Cordfucious v 2.0.1: Word, tech in sports in nothing new at all, it baffles me why people are making such a big deal outta swimming getting some improvments. These suits have been around for a while now, its not like they came out at the last minute and surprised everyone.

And c'mon its the friken Olympics! If records wern't being broke I would be worried. Every Olympics records get broke left and right! What better way to get pumped and do your best than to compete to be better than everyone else in the world

lazerpenguin

All I know when I look at Phelps, is the obvious mismatch in genetic arsenals between him and I. Any parent who ever tells their child "you can be anything that you want to be in life", needs to check themselves. That guy is amazing. Him and Kevin Garnett are like a different species (seriously though, I bet their genomes are that different from mine, that they are in face on a higher rung of the evolutionary ladder). They should make comic books and action figures out of those two.

newgalactic

@codemagic: Yes, there's that. And the suit. And the fact that in some of the swims, the international swimming body has changed the legal techniques-- like allowing Kitajima-san to use two dolphin kicks off the turn instead of the traditional one. And how world-class athletes have their strokes motion-captured and tested so coaches can use computer models to make infinitesimal changes to their strokes (just like sprinters do). And they benefit from better, more scientific training and diets.

Technology can't be put back in the box.

wild homes on the range!

@Elliuotatar: the same reason why nutrional technology changes EVERY SPORT, how cleats really helped track and field (wanna make em run barefoot). So instead of trying to be an idealogical purist, you came off as an uneducated n00b with no real sports base. I invite you to go to ANY Major NCAA Div 1 Athletic Department and you will find these "special technologies".

Now for the pool tech... IMHO I think its just evolution of faster athletes, computers to help you refine the minute details in your stoke, and extensive and hard core training.

Cordfucious v 2.0.1

@enumerator: Not all of them do.

It is just the suits basically, most of the records were beaten by margins similar to the difference the suits make apparently so yeah, the pool is standard.

Onouris

Its clear that the stadium is just a cheap knock-off of superman's Fortress of Solitude [www.joeclipart.com]

robpruitt

A "Water Pyramid", logically, would outshine the "Water Cube's" karmic goodness by an order of magnitude, with the side benefit of reintroducing swimming to our 'Chariots of the Gods' Alien benefactors...

Stem_Sell

Water this deep does not have hills so it wouldn't make a difference. Any pool is flat on top Sent from vic's iPhone

Hmm, I heard the difference was the pool is much deeper than a standard olympic sized pool. The deeper water accounted for less 'reverb' from the shock waves bouncing off the bottom.

[www.npr.org]

I'm no fluid dynamics expert, but I can see how less/smaller inteference waves bouncing up from the bottom of the pool could make a difference. Try swimming in choppy water and compare it with smooth and you get back to us, k?

codemagic

@homerjay: Haha.

The changes in the suits are already interfering with the previous Olympic swimming competitions' records. In order to determine who is the better swimmer, there should be as few variables between competitions. If they change the venues to accommodate for faster swimming, from now on, they should disclose what changes were made when keeping track of the records. (i.e. New World Record: Phelps [using $500 suit] XXIX Olympiad)

AztecDragon

this is such a stupid discussion. if it's speeding up Phelps it's speeding up everyone else. He doesn't even wear the LZR for every race. And again ALL the other swimmers have the LZR or something similar. The pool enhancements help everyone go faster. Which can be seen pretty clearly when on one race I watched all but one swimmer was under the current world record time.

Phelps is strong and has huge feet. Maybe it's just his insane training regimen and good old determination.

Nothing to see here move along, move along... ;-)

enumerator

@: That answers that.

MasterSauce

@nXt: bwahahaha...Should I point this one out to him or are we just gonna let it go?

And FALSE! The Fifty Meter swims are tonight. n00b.

MasterSauce

@nXt: UUH I think that was a "funny"?

Besides the 50m says hello...

@homerjay: But they swim both ways to finish. There's no swimming competition where they swim to the other side and finish, so a slanted pool won't help.

nXt

Or maybe we should just accept the fact that we have, as a species, evolved to be "faster, higher, stronger" and certain nations in particular should take pride in it's amazing athletes.

Collins1

They shouldn't use any special technology. What's the point in beating a record if you did it because of technology, and not because you're the better swimmer?

Elliuotatar

"Mermaid babies."- Not too Shabby, Bucky.:)

SinAmos

the truth is, phelps has nine tiny legs that spawn once he hits the water.

moviscop

I have one technological improvement for the next Olympics:
Gondolas!

I'll bet the pool was built on a slant so they're swimming downhill.

homerjay

That's BS. Human records shouldn't be helped by the stadium!

If they really wanted to make it a fast pool they could just make it six inches shorter.

-AP-

Am I the only one concerned about the fact that the so called "Water Cube" isn't actually cubic at all? The dimensions are all wrong!

Typical Chinese sweatshop product. The water is probably mostly lead. Hey maybe THATS why they're swimming so fast!

homerjay

@homerjay:

Both ways?

xcharliemx

Well we all know that it isn't in the air.

Log1c

@nXt: It was a joke, a slanted pool would spill all over!

VakeroRokero

The Chinese paid for a Photoshop filter.

@homerjay: TWICE in the same thread, that was awesome man.

P.S. Phelps is really a prototype cyborg.

maybe Phelps isn't a human at all, he's really a dolphin from the future in a human suit trying to gain fame in the past, so that in the future he's rich...or I'm just trying to get a fancy sounding comment...whichever floats your boat.

Mister Cow Pnoy

@homerjay: I lol'd.

charliew77

yeah.I mean it's definetely the suit and the less waves, like these new records couldn't POSSIBLY have anything to do with new dopping technologies.phelps probably changes to a smaller sized 500$ suits every few years, and that's why he's beating the shit out of previous records, which were, by the way, all set by him...
and I bet everyone's using stuff that shouldn't be used.phelps probably has btter abilites from start and more money.
It's just we shouldn't fool ourselves by thinking swimsuits and pools are the most important part of modern sports technology...

@xcharliemx: Its like my dad who always said that he had to walk to school in the snow uphill both ways...

ab3

C'mon people, the pool tilts both ways like a see-saw. The slow people get stuck swimming uphill as the pool tilts the other way.

stuartny

Phelps should be disqualified.
There's no way he's human.

performance has always varied by pool; some pools are just faster than others. you don't need to be an olympic swimmer to know that.

and seriously... as already stated, EVERYONE gets an advantage in a fast pool.

the sport will get messed up when people with prosthetic fins for legs start competing... then THATS unfair

lincch01

I did a google search earlier today that brought up to different newspapers with different information, so here is all of it.
Apparently, he is double-jointed in his knees, elbows, wrists, ankles, and chest.
wtf

fudged71

@stuartny: HA!

Everyone knows you can't tilt a pool the other way. It's science.

strider_mt2k

Rumour has it that the secret to Michael Phelp's success is his pop-crotch swimsuit.... as soon as he hits the water, his penis pops out and spins like a propeller!

professor

Seems obvious to me it's just new doping. He's so much better than everyone else it makes no sense; records get broken every olympics but not by 6 and 8 seconds, it's an incremental process. It isn't a new suit or clever pool, since everyone has those. It's the man himself. He wasn't bred in a tank for swimming. You can believe there's just a guy who's immensely better than everyone to enter the sport before him appeared this year if you like. As I said, seems obvious to me it's just undetectable doping.

Phelps just won his sixth shiny gold in the 200 IM. I want those Mermaid babies. Really.

grimgrassofhome

@professor: I'll never forgive you for that mental imagery.

robpruitt

Every time I see the Water Cube from outside, I can't help but think of a mattress. That's just what it looks like. I've started calling it the Water Mattress at home. :-)

His superhuman speed is obviously coming from the transition of our NTSC televisions trying to show the PAL feed coming from China.

ceilingFANBOY

Psh, and people were worried everyone was going to die from pollution while in Beijing. Now everyone's breaking records. Hell, some of that pollution probably spawned those 90 legs that movis was talking about >>

@: ahh and the cynic enters.
If you were actually paying attention and not trolling you would realize that THE WHOLE FIELD smashes the world record.... he just happens to be faster. So is the whole field doping.

Wait you posted that waayyy to fast.... I want your pee and blood

Before you embark on a journey of revenge.... dig 2 graves and know that hell you are talking about

Cordfucious v 2.0.1

The pool is 3 meters deep which is a meter deeper than most pools used at this level of competition. This one meter difference decreases the strength of the shock wave that the swimmer creates.

@homerjay: This comment is so full of win I don't know what else to say. I would really be depressed if someone actually thought this was the truth.

Quicksilver4648

Cultivar, yes, because the guy trains 5-8 hours every single day and has a physique particularly suited to the type of swims he does, and is one of the most hard core athletes in the world right now he MUST be doping.

You are a tool.

There's more records being smashed this year than when the East Germans competed, and by a much wider margin. Either mankind has evolved massively in the last four years or something else is up.

One word: Steroids.

its a swimming race...theyre not saving the world.

we could be concerned with iraq, afghanistan, or georgia but noooooooooooo....

were watching swimming races.

knappoleon

@homerjay:
No, you have to put it on a gimball, so you can tilt it downhill in the other direction once he reaches the wall. The only event where a constant slope could possibly help the entire time is the 50m freestyle, which he doesn't swim.

Actually, a big part of it, at least on Phelps' end, is that in 2004/Athens, they said he hadn't even begun to come into his prime. Now he has, and that means his performance level has jumped up to a completely new level. And he hasn't been able to compete in NCAA events due to the huge endorsement checks he's been receiving since Athens, which means he's had much less opportunity to break his own records than he _could_ have had. For the rest of them, there's a lot of tech improvement. New swimsuits that are better designed to assist the swimmer rather than simply holding their junk in, new after-swim carb/protein drinks to help replenish lost nutrients immediately, new camera technology that allows them to see _exactly_ where you're screwing up... Oh, and training like it's a full-time job, instead of in addition to doing a regular job.

@homerjay:
It is, but most of it's hidden underground. And made of dirt, clay, and bedrock. But it's down there, dammit!

@fudged71:
The bit they ran on his physique on NBC coverage says that he has the legs of a 6'0" man, the upper body of a 6'8" man, an actual height of 6'4", an armspan of 6'7" (usually your height and fingertip-to-fingertip measurement are roughly equal), size 14 feet, huge hands, no butt, skinny legs, double-jointed knees, and freaking massive shoulder muscles. They didn't say so, but based on that trademark arm-flopping he does when he gets on the blocks, he has to have double-jointed shoulders as well.

@Cultivar:
Like Dara Torres, Phelps has volunteered to undergo drug testing as often as possible. He knows that, just like with Lance Armstrong, there will be people who refuse to be convinced that it's just hard work and an ideal physique, so he's realized that the only way to get them to STFU is to undergo a constant barrage of drug testing. There's no way he'd be able to start using steroids after any given test because there's just going to be another the next day, he can't flush them out of his system because he gets tested right after his races, and they get to keep his test samples around for eight years, so it'd be a massive gamble to hope that anything he was using wouldn't be tested for that far down the road. Just look at him standing there sometime. His body couldn't be more suited to swimming unless he had flukes, gills, and a natural slime coating.

Purple Dave

Isn't it obvious? Look at his mom, he was born half whale.

MartyrByFire

@MartyrByFire: Isn't it obvious? Look at his mom, he was born half whale.

Is college football here yet? Go Bucks!

theshortguy

I think the Chinese are dosing the water with methamphetamine.

wjousts

"didnt want to pay for them" did I hear what i think i heard? The chinese wanted to save money on the Olympics? I couldnt tell after they spent half the worlds money on the opening ceremony!

vinnyr

You guys are just making stuff up.

It should be obvious, even to the untrained eye, that they've diluted the water in the pool to a 1:1 ratio with dihydrogen-oxide; thus making the water less dense and easier to swim through.

sheesh, I have to explain everything.

Geisrud

@Purple Dave: ...an armspan of 6'7" (usually your height and fingertip-to-fingertip measurement are roughly equal)...

I'm 6'3" and I have a 6'9" armspan.

I did pretty well in swimming, but started too late (11) to get that far.

TickleMeElmo

@ceilingFANBOY: No its because he eats mermaid babies...duh!

parliamentpoet

His Secret Safe, Phelps Hums Atlantis's National Anthem Smugly to Himself
via [gawker.com]

Bos'un's Mate

I just love how deep it is. What I'd give to have access to a 10-foot deep pool for lap swimming in this day and age of public pools (and YMCA and pay gyms) wussifying their depth for fear of drowning lawsuits from kiddos who want to get in the deep end too early...

NightElfMohawk

@ab3: Whoops! Like I said... ;)

Bos'un's Mate

I wouldn't so easily dismiss his size 14's either. Dude's feet LOOK like friggin' flippers.

avconsumer2

@nXt: Wait ... you mean my grandparents might not  have walked 10 miles to school, barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways?

Bos'un's Mate

I saved all my A material for the olympic games. :)

homerjay

@Onouris: Those suits are the source of all evil, they should all swim naked.

HFC

RE: homerjay:

Make the bad man stop

Wormfather is Wormfather

@homerjay: wouldn't lead weight you down and make u swim slower...

johnyeros

@HFC: Ew! I already have issue with the number of times NBC shows him bare chested in very tight swim gear. Between him and the male gymnists I really wish that they had a better way of constricting a man's junk. It all just reminds me of that creepy dude at the gym who gets a boner every time he uses the treadmill.

ionerox

i was there today it is very very beautiful

bwilliams18

@professor: Thanks, I'm going to have really bad images in my head the rest of the day.

theblackdog

Phelps is a mutant. The guy doesnt even have feet. He has flippers. His arms have evolved into wings.

hkmp5n

@TickleMeElmo: I thought I heard during the coverage that Phelps started when he was 11.

FrancesTheMute

@stuartny: "The slow people get stuck swimming uphill as the pool tilts the other way."

It's going to be a net loss for all, because you'd spend more time on the uphill leg than the downhill.

GadgetPlay

this explains it
[i292.photobucket.com]

holysocks

I like people claiming that the suit is the reason he's so fast. Like all of the other swimmers aren't using similar suits. What's the difference the suit makes 1/10 of a second in a typical race?

All that this proves is that there are no shortage of haters who will insist that it must be a magic suit, drugs, steroids, etc, that leaves this guy the greatest swimmer of all time.

canyoncarver

@newgalactic: "All men are Not created equal. Worthy is the society that lets everyone reach their maximum individual potential." - Frank Herbert

s0crates82

@TickleMeElmo:
It's not just the armspan, of course, but that's a huge help. Dude's got a psycho training regimen as well. So does Dara Torres (this morning they ran a bit on her, identifying the squad of almost ten trainers/massagers/stretchers/coaches that she needs to keep herself competitive at her age).

@GadgetPlay:
Only if it's titled downhill in only one direction. If they tilt it the other direction when the one person hits the wall, then he gets to swim downhill the whole time, while all the laggers lose ground as they start tumbling downhill.

@canyoncarver:
Truth is he wouldn't be able to do it without those funky swimpants. Of course, his competition would be less impressive in regular Speedos as well, so while he wouldn't be putting up such impressive records, he'd still probably be winning the golds left and right anyways.

My big question is what sort of effect difference do Phelps' swimpants have vs. the torso/leg outfits that most of his competition wear? As I understand it, there are supposed to be two main benefits of the funky suits. One is that they have less friction against water than human skin, and the other is that they help keep your muscles compact so they work more efficiently. The torso suits, on the other hand, have to be constricting your breathing as well, I'd think, and that would be a hinderance unless the torso isn't as snug as the legs. On the flip side, they probably help keep the swimmers warmer when they're not in the water, which the "shower mystery" explanation has shown to be a concern.

Purple Dave

yeah this pool is supposed to be one of the fastest pools ever built... a meter deeper, the lane lines direct water downward instead of out, and the edges have better overflow (like that of an infinity pool) all reducing times no matter what plasma welded bathing suit you wear.

When i said this at a party the other day everyone looked at me like i was retard... im no doctor but it makes sense to me

purple-pillows

@ HFC

no can do. Naked swimmers + shrinkage = bad ratings

Gtaste8

Sorry to double post, but yes. He is half cyborg. I'm the cyborg half.

orangesrhyme

@Collins1: Nope. I'm pretty sure that Micheal Phelps is my alter ego, and he's just awesome. Like me.

orangesrhyme

Stop talking crap about technology doing all the work i couldn't swim like that even if i stuck a jet engine on my back.

It's like in my case, I'm a designer and I hear all the time that the PC does all the work but it doesn't matter if your rig it's the latest shit if you don't know how to do things

mpar

I read an article on Outside Online that included the following:

It's a "Fast Pool"
To promote the breaking of swimming world records, the Chinese have optimized their Water Cube pool for speed by: (1) Keeping the water at 80.6 degrees, the temperature considered optimal for swimmers; (2) pumping "microbubbles" into the pool to break the water's surface tension; (3) building the pool to a depth of 42.7 feet, which prevents water-temperature interference; and (4) introducing a ventilation system that whisks chlorine fumes off the surface of the water, allowing the athletes to breathe clean air.

I believe the pool is also wider than the "standard" Olympic pool with an advanced gutter system to limit the residual waves.

Go Technology!

vikingboy

I think Phelps had a waverunner waterjet implanted in his ass. How else can you explain it??

DocLev

All this talk of technology helping humans is laughable. Has anyone thought about how POOLS themselves are pretty amazing pieces of technology? As a matter of fact, If we want it to be REALLY fair, here's what should happen: 1) All swimming should take place in lakes/rivers/oceans. This way, there will be no talk of 'extra lanes' or 'sponge-like walls. Wait...those bodies of water aren't the same size, either! Okay...all swimming should take place in Lake Jessup in Central Florida. 2) All swimming should be done in the nude. That way, no one gets a technological advantage from Speedos/bathing caps/goggles/nose plugs. 3) No shaving/waxing/lasering of hair. Swimmers are getting a technological advantage by shaving/waxing/lasering. If swimmers want to get rid of hair for competition, they must pluck each hair individually. 4) All weight lifting should be done by carrying large stones, sacks of flour, and family members. No training with weight machines allowed. How far are we going to take the 'technological advantage' ridiculousness?

GingerHaole

The architecture etc is all very nice, but we should be testing all the swimmers for doping. Phelps especially. If nothing is found then the blood and urine samples need to be stored until we have the expertise to make sure they are all not cheating. The Americans must have found some new drug which they can't test for yet.

ggggggg

Apparently, a professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has had some to do with this. He started testing for flow measurements around the swimmers bodies and from there began developing optimizing swimming techniques for US Olympic swimmers.

Video: [www.rpi.edu]

ametcalf

"and daily regimen of 12,000 calories composed mostly of mermaid babies"

Who writes these articles... that is some funny sh!t.

adikt

i know i swim faster when I'm inspired by a pretty pool

silence04

@mpar:
Of course not. You'd sink straight to the bottom, and the jet engine would shut down the instant it goes under.

Anyways, 7 for 7 now, but it's a shame he didn't catch the World Record on the last one. What a finish, though.

Purple Dave